Stan Freberg

Freberg began his six-decade career doing impersonations on Cliffie Stone’s radio program in 1943. Soon after he began voicing characters for the now-classic Warner Bros cartoons, working with the genre’s king, Mel Blanc. He voiced Junyer Bear, Beaky Buzzard (“A-nope-nope-nope”) and Tosh, one of the two Goofy Gophers opposite Blanc, but perhaps the young actor’s most enduring portrayal was the seemingly slow Pete Puma. Said cat famously was asked by Bugs Bunny how many lumps of sugar he wanted in his tea. “Oh, three or four,” Pete drawled — before Bugs’ numerous shots to the melon with a mallet produced said lumps.

Freberg went on to work on numerous radio programs before starring in Time For Beany, the early-TV show created by Looney Tunes director Bob Clampett. The puppet show started in 1949 as a local Los Angeles program but went nationwide the following year, running for five seasons. While working on Beany, Freberg began making satirical records that targeted the popular culture of the day. The first was 1951’s “John And Marsha.” which jabbed at soap operas. It featured a man and woman simply repeating each other’s names, with exaggerated inflection to represent the implied drama.